computer science

Intermedia (hypertext)

Intermedia (hypertext) is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Intermedia (hypertext) rather than just read about it. In short: Intermedia was the third notable hypertext project to emerge from Brown University, after HES (1967) and FRESS (1969). Intermedia was started in 1985 by Norman Meyrowitz, who had been associated with sooner hypertext research at Brown.

Key takeaways

Intermedia (hypertext) belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Intermedia (hypertext) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Intermedia (hypertext) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Intermedia was the third notable hypertext project to emerge from Brown University, after HES (1967) and FRESS (1969). Intermedia was started in 1985 by Norman Meyrowitz, who had been associated with sooner hypertext research at Brown. The Intermedia project coincided with the establishment of the Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS). Some of the materials that came from Intermedia, authored by Meyrowitz, Nancy Garrett, and Karen Catlin were used in the development of HTML. Intermedia ran on A/UX version 1.1. Intermedia was programmed using an object-oriented toolkit and standard DBMS functions. Intermedia supported bi-directional, dual-anchor links for both text and graphics. Small icons are used as anchor markers. Intermedia properties include author, creation date, title, and keywords. Link information is stored by the system apart from the source text. More than one such set of data can be kept, which allows each user to have their own "web" of information. Intermedia has complete multi-user support, with three levels of access rights: read, write, and annotate, which is similar to Unix permissions. As promising as Intermedia was, it used a lot of resources for its time (it required 4 MB of RAM and 80 MB of hard drive space in 1989). It was also highly tied to A/UX, a less popular Unix-like operating system that ran on Apple Macintosh computers; thus, it wasn't very portable. In 1991, changes in A/UX and lack of funding ended the Intermedia project.

See also Xanadu Microcosm Hyper-G (or HyperWave)

References L. Nancy Garrett and Karen E. Smith. "Building a Timeline Editor from Prefab Parts: The Architecture of an Object-Oriented Application". ACM Proceedings of OOPSLA ’86 (September 1986). ACM Digital Library. L. Nancy Garrett, Norman Meyrowitz, and Karen E. Smith. "Intermedia: Issues, Strategies, and Tactics in the Design of a Hypermedia System". ACM Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (December 1986), ACM Digital Library. Nicole Yankelovich, Karen E. Smith, L. Nancy Garrett and Norman Meyrowitz. "Issues in Designing a Hypermedia Document System: The Intermedia Case Study" in Learning Tomorrow: Journal of the Apple Education Advisory Council, n3 p35-87 Spring 1987. Karen E. Smith and Stanley B. Zdonik. "Intermedia: A case study of the differences between relational and object-oriented database systems". ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 22, Issue 12 (December 1987) Pages: 452 - 465. ACM Digital Library. L. Nancy Garrett, Julie Launhardt, and Karen Smith Catlin. "Hypermedia Templates: An Author’s Tool". ACM Proceedings of Hypertext ‘91 (December 1991). ACM Digital Library. Paul Kahn. "Linking Together Books: Experiments in Adapting Published Materials into Intermedia Documents " in Hypermedia and Literary Studies, Paul Delany and George P. Landow (editors). The MIT Press (March 19, 1994) ISBN 0-262-54073-8 The History of Hypertext by Jacob Nielsen (February 1, 1995), https://www.nngroup.com/articles/hypertext-history/ (accessed 1/31/2017) Brown University Department of Computer Science. (May 23, 2019). A Half-Century of Hypertext at Brown: A Symposium.

External links [1] Video of Norman Meyrowitz demonstrating Intermedia at ACM HUMAN’20 conference, Dec 2020

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Intermedia (hypertext)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Intermedia (hypertext) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Intermedia (hypertext) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Intermedia (hypertext) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Intermedia (hypertext)

In research: Intermedia (hypertext) appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Intermedia (hypertext) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Intermedia (hypertext) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Computer-related introductions in 1985, Hypermedia, Hypertext, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Intermedia (hypertext) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Intermedia (hypertext) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Intermedia (hypertext) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Intermedia (hypertext) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Intermedia (hypertext) in simple terms?

Why does Intermedia (hypertext) matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Intermedia (hypertext)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Intermedia (hypertext).